Estimating the built environment stock in Cape Verde

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the estimates of the value of the built environment stock in Cape Verde, a Sub-Saharan African country that is scattered through ten relatively small islands. Design/methodology/approach It applies the perpetual inventory method in a long series of construction investment data at 1980 and 2007 constant prices published by the Cape Verde's National Statistics Office. Findings The results show that the capital-output ratio is similar to those in the advanced industrial countries. The high value of this indicator suggests that the country should shift its focus from building new investment projects to managing the considerable amount of built stock. Originality/value The main originality of the paper comes from the use of different data sets from the National Statistical Office to construct the indicators of the construction industry activity in a comprehensive way.